Detained Uighur scholar went for days without food

FILE - In this Monday, Feb. 4, 2013 file photo, Ilham Tohti, an outspoken scholar of China's Turkic Uighur ethnic minority, speaks during an interview at his home in Beijing, China. On Thursday, June 26, 2014, a lawyer provided the first news about the minority Uighur economics professor since he was detained by Chinese authorities over five months ago, saying the activist staged a hunger strike and later was denied food. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

BEIJING (AP) — An outspoken minority Uighur scholar went on a hunger strike in a Chinese jail and later was denied food, his lawyer said Thursday in the first news of the activist whose detention more than five months ago drew criticism from U.S. and European officials.

Until now, little has been known about the status of Ilham Tohti, an economics professor, since he was taken away from his home by police in mid-January and later accused of separatism. Ilham Tohti has been a moderate but vocal advocate for equal rights for the Turkic Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang, a region that has been shaken by unrest that has escalated over the past year.

Ilham Tohti met with his lawyer Li Fangping on Thursday and firmly rejected accusations that he had been fomenting separatism, Li said by phone.

"He believes that in his words and deeds, he has always sought to work for the country's national interests and the organic integration of the Han majority and Uighur minority's common benefits," Li said. "His starting point has been to promote mutual understanding between the Hans and the Uighurs."

This was the first time Ilham Tohti had been granted access to his lawyer. His family has not been allowed to see him. He has not been formally charged, but prosecution is all but guaranteed as China tightens control over the region where a series of clashes between Uighurs and police have killed dozens of people.

Li said that Ilham Tohti, who like most Uighurs is Muslim, told him he went on a hunger strike for 10 days in January to protest being served food that didn't follow Islamic dietary laws. When his organs started bleeding, Li said, authorities force-fed him milk.

Then in March, after an attack by suspected Uighur militants on a train station in the southern Chinese city of Kunming killed 29 people, Ilham Tohti was denied food for 10 days and survived on less than two cups of water, Li said.

Calls to the detention center in Xinjiang's capital city of Urumqi rang unanswered.

The lawyer said that the 44-year-old's legs had been shackled for more than 20 days when he was first detained and that he has since lost 8 kilograms (17 pounds). He said, however, that Ilham Tohti was not being beaten by interrogators — a concern that many of his supporters had raised.

European and American officials have urged China to explain why police have detained him.

Ilham Tohti has not joined calls for Xinjiang's independence but his outspokenness on problems with China's ethnic policies has made him a target of security forces. He has criticized the authoritarian government's heavy-handed handling of recent unrest, saying China's stifling security presence, widespread discrimination and restrictions have fanned ethnic discord in Xinjiang.